TEMECULA: Alleged knife attacker to face trial

After hearing testimony from a stabbing victim and the man who came to her rescue, a judge ordered a 20-year-old Temecula man Friday to stand trial for attempted murder.

Citing the viciousness of the apparently random attack for which Kurt Alexander Smallen is charged, Riverside Superior Court Judge Timothy Freer said it "leaves the court no other choice but to find that there was an intent to kill and that it was willful, deliberate and premeditated."

Smallen faces a sentence of 13 years to life in prison if convicted of all the counts filed against him by the
Riverside County district attorney
. In addition to attempted murder, he is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and enhancements of using a weapon to commit a felony and to cause great bodily injury.

The victim, a woman identified only as Jane Doe, testified in a courtroom at
Southwest Justice Center
in French Valley that Feb. 2, she was jogging on a trail in her neighborhood of Meadowview in northeastern Temecula.

As she was running, she had noticed a man whom she did not know walking on the trail.

Shortly after she passed him, she said, she felt jabs to the back of her shoulder and in the center of her back, after which the attacker maneuvered around in front of her and began stabbing at her chest.

"It felt like he was trying to stab me in the heart," she said. "He stabbed me in the breast twice and it seemed like he was really happy with those blows."

Under cross-examination by defense attorney
Morgan Hezlep
, the victim said the attacker grinned when he would plunge his knife into her. She described it as having a 6-inch serrated blade.

He appeared to enjoy her pleas for him to stop and her attempts to fend off his blows with her arms, she said.

"It was more like he was having a sparring match. ... He would poke and wave, poke and wave," she said.

In response to Deputy District Attorney Marcus Garrett's questioning, she described her injuries, including the wounds to her breast and to her lower torso resulting in damage to her liver.

"I know there were eight large wounds, but I can't count the number of other times I was struck by the knife," she said.

She said that when a second man approached, the attacker fled.

After the man said he was there to help her and came toward her, she collapsed, while he called 911.

"I stayed on my feet until he got there because if I didn't, I think I'd be dead," she said.

The rescuer, Meadowview resident William Dennick, testified that he was riding his bike when he saw something unusual down a hill.

"It looked like a man throwing down a woman and giving a stabbing motion," he said.

Still trying to focus on his descent, he approached cautiously and the man fled when he neared, Dennick said.

"The victim sat up and screamed, 'Help me, help me help me,' as loud as she could," he said.

He could see she was bleeding, but didn't realized the extent to which she had been wounded until later while he was attending to her.

"I felt wetness around my knees and I noticed there was a puddle of blood," he said.

After the testimony of the two witnesses, Freer said he had heard enough to come to a decision.

He added that it seemed obvious from the testimony that the defendant had picked the woman as a target.

"It appeared that he was lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to prey," the judge said.

At the beginning of the hearing, Smallen's attorneys said for the record that they had sought to obtain a plea bargan for their client, but it had been turned down by prosecutors.

"This was a heinous, senseless act of violence, and we will not accept their offer at this time," Garrett said after the hearing.

Defense attorney
Thanasi Preovolos
said Smallen and his family had agreed to a sentence of 11 years in prison with no early release in exchange for dropping the allegation that it was a premeditated act.

"I think the frustration we have is that Mr. Smallen is trying to take responsibility if he can," Preovolos said. "The request to strike premeditation does not mean he will not go to jail."

Preovolos said that Smallen and his family are not pursuing a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.